The Life of a Sex Slave
by EvaXephon
Summary: Warning: This story contains sexual slavery and rape.
1. Prologue

I am a body. Not a person.

A person is free. A person can act and speak however they choose to. I am not allowed to act nor speak, and so I am not a person. I am a body.

I cannot act, because I cannot move. My wrists and my ankles are chained down to the metal poles of the bed frame. I am only able to move when he unchains me to put me in a new position. During this time, I am also not a person. I am still just a body, because I choose not to move; if I resisted him, he would beat me until I stopped, and so I do not move.

I do not speak, because he does not allow me to. If I speak, he beats me until I stop. In the beginning, I tried to speak. I was afraid of him, so I tried to speak without angering him. I begged him to stop, but he ignored me. I commanded him to stop, and he beat me. I called him by the words my father used when he was angry, and then he beat me viciously. When I stopped speaking, he stopped beating me, and so I learned not to speak. I have made several attempts to reason with him, but he ignores my words and beats me even when I speak gently.

I am just a body. An object. I can think and draw breath, but I cannot act or speak any more than the bed I lay upon.

Everything in this room belongs to him, including me.

I am property. I belong to him. I am one of his possessions. Just like the lamp, the table, and the bed. I am just another stationary thing that cannot communicate. He can use me whenever he desires. My body does not belong to me; it is his body. His property. His toy. His plaything.

I can still recall what it was like to play with toys. My father tried his best to find new toys for me whenever he left our shelter to look for supplies. When I asked him why I never saw him playing with toys, he told me that adults do not have toys and do not play, because they are always busy with important adult things. I told him that I never wanted to become an adult, and he just smiled gently and told me that I didn't have a choice in the matter. My father was kind, but he reminded me very often that the world is a very unfair and unpleasant place that is filled with bad things which cannot be changed. He told me that he was protecting me from most of the bad things in the world, and that's why I had to stay in our shelter and never leave. I was happy in our shelter, because the outside world seemed so scary, and because my taught me new things every day. He seemed to know everything in the world.

But he was wrong when he said that adults don't have toys and don't play. I am a toy, and my owner plays with me every day.

Father told me about sex. When I asked him where people come from, he told me that men and women have special body parts for making children. He told me that most parents hide the truth about reproduction from their children because it is considered embarrassing and rude to talk about it. However, my father never hid anything from me. He explained to me that all people experience an urge to have sexual intercourse, and that some people are obsessed with it.

My father warned me that there were people in this world who have no respect for other people, who would kill another person to obtain that person's possessions. He told me that these people are called Raiders. He told me that Raiders have only one use for a living person: slavery. He told me that slavery is when you are not allowed to act or speak, and have to follow orders at all times. He told me that if Raiders capture a woman, they will force her to have sex with them. He said this is called rape. He said that rape is the worst thing you can do to a person. I asked him why rape is a bad thing if sex is supposed to feel good. He said that sex doesn't feel good if you don't want to do it with the person you're having sex with.

That explains why I've never felt good during sex. My owner has had sex with me hundreds of times, and each time somehow managed to be more painful than the last. I thought that I would eventually become numb to the pain, but that day never came.

I remember asking my father if rape was worse than murder, and he said that he didn't know. I don't know, either. I do know that I hate being raped, and that I the man who rapes me. I hate him because he killed my father, and because he is cruel enough to rape me every day. I hate him because he is so violent and rough with me. I hate everything about him, from his ugly face to his bad breath to his greedy hands, always touching me and always rough. The nicest thing he does for me is feed me nasty gruel and dispose of my waste, but sometimes he forgets to do even that.

I want to spit his food back in his face. I want to relieve myself when he's raping me, to disgust him. I want to hit him when he unchains one of my hands to put me in a different position. But I don't spit at him, I don't try to disgust him, and I don't try to hurt him. I know that if I did any of these things, he would just beat me. And I am also afraid that if I displeased him, he would kill me.

If I refused to eat his food, or found a way to suffocate myself, or made him angry enough to kill me, then I would die. If I died, then I would never be raped again. Death is the only way that I will ever escape him. As long as I am alive, I will be raped.

But I don't want to die.

When I asked my father to explain death, he said that when something dies, it never feels anything ever again. It cannot think, or see, or hear, or smell, or taste, or make a sound, or even move. When an animal dies, it becomes a body. And a body is just an object. A thing.

My father also told me that there is nothing after death. He said that some people believe in an afterlife, a world that your mind travels to once your body is dead. But, he said, these people are wrong. My father told me that the concept of an afterlife is just a lie that helps people cope with dying. He said that people feel better about death if they think death is not the end of everything. But my father promised me that he would never lie to me, and so he told me the truth; he told me that there is nothing after death.

I have already become an object, because I can not act or speak. I have already lost my status as a person. But I don't want to die, because death would be even worse. Death means that I will never feel or think, ever again. I am a body, a thing. But I am a body that can think and perceive the world around it. I am grateful for my life, and so I refuse to die.

With that said, my life is not very enjoyable. All of the senses I am so grateful for grant me no pleasure. I have been staring at the same ceiling, walls, and floor for as long as I can remember. There is nothing for me to smell but my own waste and the body odor of the man who rapes me. There is nothing to listen to, except for his grunting and heavy breathing. There is nothing for me to taste except for his repulsive gruel. The only sensations that ever grace my skin are the chains at my hands and feet, and sharp pain at the most sensitive part of my body.

I am not sure how long I have been in this room. I do know that when I first came here, the stench was overpowering, and my senses were overwhelmed. But now I barely notice the stench, or anything else, for that matter. Nothing means as much as it once did. Nothing is important anymore. Nothing in this room feels special to me. Everything is just...there.

When I go to sleep, sometimes I dream of my father's death. Sometimes I dream that I am being raped. When I am raped while I am awake, and raped in my dreams, it is hard to tell when I am awake and when I am dreaming.

I have difficulty recalling how often I am raped and how many times it has happened. Sometimes it seems to happen all day long, and sometimes it feels like days have passed since the last time. It is difficult for me to concentrate on anything anymore.

I have not accepted my new life, but I have acknowledged what I have become. I was once a person, but now I am a body. I have become an object that has feelings. If I died, then I would have nothing at all, and so I will continue to live. To continue my life means to lie here on this bed, where I will be raped every day.

I have begun to ask myself whether a life of pain is better than no life at all. The ability to experience sensations is a gift that inanimate objects would envy, if they could. I would throw away that gift if I killed myself; and yet, my life is nothing but pain and torture. Is life truly a gift, when there is nothing to enjoy, and nothing to look forward to except for pain?

And, so, I have realized something.

I do not appreciate my life.

I do not want my life.

I hate my life.

As I listen to the door of this room slam shut, as I feel hot tears pour down my cheeks, and as I feel blood seep out from between my legs, I make the decision to end my life.


	2. Chapter 1

I did not have a wealth of knowledge, and so I was not aware of the best method to use. I could have slammed my head against the metal frame of the bed, but I was not sure if this would render me unconscious before it killed me. I decided to try suffocating myself first, instead.

Crying, sweating, shaking, and breathing hard, I stuck out my tongue as far as I could, and then I clenched my teeth. I bit down hard, fighting back a scream of self-produced agony, as I attempted to bite off my tongue. I didn't know whether I would be able to choke myself with it, or whether I would be able to suffocate on my own blood. All I knew was that this plan might have a chance of success, and so I had to try it.

For better or for worse, I never saw the end of my plan.

The sudden sound of gunfire interrupted my suicide attempt. I had not heard gunfire since I lived with my father, and I never expected to hear that sound down in this underground cavern where my rapist had made his home. It was noteworthy for several reasons: it was extraordinarily loud, it broke the monotony of my life, and it meant danger.

I jerked my head up in surprise, trying to sit up in my bed before the chains that confined me pulled me back down. I tilted my head up and stared attentively at the door as though it provided me knowledge of what was occurring behind it. I heard a scream, followed by more gunfire, and then silence. I heard laughter, and muffled voices. Unfamiliar voices.

I knew immediately what had occurred - other people had discovered this cavern and killed my rapist - and yet, it was impossible to believe it was actually happening. The man who had tormented me for so long - he was dead? Just like that? He would never touch me again?

It was all too sudden for me to accept, too abrupt to feel like reality. I wondered if I might be dreaming, but the sharp pain on my tongue confirmed that I was awake.

In one singular, brilliant, fantastic moment, the world came to life again. The dull, faded wallpaper of the room became a vibrant yellow. The musky stenches that filled the room flew swiftly up my nose as I inhaled sharply with excitement, but all of those wretched odors somehow just made me feel more alive.

Alive. That was something I hadn't felt for a long, long time. And there was something else, too -

Hope.

As I listened to the sound of heavy footsteps clunking around whatever rooms laid beyond the one I was confined to, I wished that they would find me, and feared that they wouldn't. When I started whimpering out of desperation, I remembered that I had something I hadn't used in a very long time; my voice.

"Help..." The sound came out as a hoarse whisper, more of a guttural grunt than a word. I cleared my throat, swallowed saliva, and tried again.

"HELP! I'M IN HERE! PLEASE HELP ME!"

It had been so long since I'd heard the sound of my own voice that it frightened me to hear it. It sounded like I was listening to someone else. My voice was nothing like I'd remembered. I was surprised that I still remembered how to talk.

I heard the muffled voices again, and then the heavy footsteps - this time getting louder, which means they were getting closer. I almost thrashed around with excitement and anticipation. Rescue! Salvation! The moment I had spent countless hours fantasizing about was finally at hand!

The door handle turned, and then the door creaked open. The long, metal barrel of a rifle poked through, followed cautiously by a tall and powerfully built man with a thick beard and a wrinkled face. Everything about him was filthy, from the dirt on his face and beard to the tattered rags he wore, stitched cloth with a few metal plates strapped on to provide defense. When he saw me, his eyes widened and his lips parted in a wide smile that revealed two rows of yellow teeth.

The moment I saw his face light up at the sight of me, I knew that he was going to be no more kind to me than my owner had been.

"My God, the lucky bastard had a slave," he said. He walked further into the room, looked up and down my body, and whistled with what I presumed was approval. "And a mighty fine catch she is."

"A wot? A slave y'say?" Another man barged into the room, just as dirty as the first, but shorter and scrawnier, with a thin face and a weak chin. " 'Oly mother'a God! I diddin' think we'd foind a treasah like this down 'eah!"

"Yeah, yeah," The first man said, undoing his belt buckle. "I saw her first."

My heart sank. The world lost its color and vibrancy again. I shook my head in denial. This couldn't be happening...I had been discovered, but by the same type of scum that had first captured me.

"No fair, I'm the one that said I 'eard a voice!" The scrawny one argued. "Let me 'ave a go! I don't want no sloppy seconds!"

"Judging by how worn her pussy is, I'd say you'd be getting sloppy hundredths," The burly one said. "I bet she's a loose as a wizard's sleeve, but that won't stop me! I haven't had any since that wench we found who was all hopped up on Jet!"

"Why're we talkin' 'bout takin' turns?" The scrawny one argued. "She's got more than enough holes fer th' two o' us!"

"Because I like having privacy and I don't want to see your shriveled-up pecker while I'm trying to get my rocks off!" The burly man retorted, his genitals already in his hand. "Now go loot the joint and throw all the stuff on Bessie. I'll be done soon!"

"Yeah yeah, whateva you say, ya tosser..." The scrawny man spat as he retreated.

For the first time since I had been thrown into this hellhole, I tried to resist. I thrashed and I struggled against the chains, but they would not give. "No!" I begged as I felt him rubbing himself against my thigh to make himself erect. "Don't do this!"

"Sorry, doll," he said with a laugh. "You're just too good a find to pass up!"

"How can you not care?!" I demanded. "How can you not care how I feel?!"

The man arched one eyebrow, and then bellowed out a hoarse laugh. It was an unpleasant, evil sound. "Care? Care how you FEEL?" He echoed. "Doll, if I cared how people felt, then I wouldn't have lasted so long, now would I? It's a dog-eat-dog world out there, every man for himself, survival of the fittest! I can't stop to think about whether or not someone's feelings are going to be hurt when I kill them and take their food, or they'd take that opportunity to kill me first! In the wasteland, nice guys wind up dead and assholes live longer. Sorry, doll - that's just the way it is!"

I felt a very familiar sensation between my legs, but it was even more painful than it normally was. I tilted my head back in resignation and began crying for the third time that day. After several minutes of sloppy, foul-smelling kisses, rough, coarse groping, and agonizing, excruciating thrusts, the brawny man finished and informed the other man that it was his turn. He was even worse than the first one, slapping me across the face with both his hands and his genitals and shouting an endless string of derogatory terms at me as he had his way with my body.

Either one of them left me with more bruises than my previous rapist ever had. When they were done, they laughed and bragged about their exploits, and then they went looking for the key that would undo my bindings. They found it and unshackled me, but I saw no reason to fight them back. They put clothing on me - a long, brown, ugly frock that itched horribly - and then they used my chains to tie my wrists behind my back and bound my ankles, and then they dragged me from the room.

It was the first time I'd been out of that room since...I had been tossed inside of it. Had it been weeks? Months? Years? The days had blended together. I had lost track of time - I had lost all _sense_ of time.

After spending so much time in a single room, the suddenly change of scenery blew my mind. I marveled at my surroundings - it was just an underground cavern with a few decorations and amenities that made life easier, but everything in sight was eye candy to a person who hadn't seen anything new for ages.

"Wot's yer name, girl?" The shorter, scrawnier man asked.

I didn't answer him.

"Ya 'ere me?" He said loudly into my ear, shaking me by the hair. "I asked you wot yer name is, yeh twat!"

Again, I did not reply. I was not trying to be defiant. I just didn't feel like speaking. I had no energy after being raped twice in rapid succession, and I was still in shock over how abruptly my life had changed. To tell the truth, I also had a hard time recalling what my name was.

"Looks like we got a real bitch on our hands!" The taller, larger man said. The scrawny one slapped me across the face and shook my head violently.

"I SAID WOT'S YER NAME, GIRL!" He screamed at me, blasting me in the face with foul breath.

"SAM!" I replied, speaking far more loudly than I intended to.

"Sam? Wot?" The scrawny man asked. "Yer name's Sam? That's a boy's name!"

"Short for Samantha," I wheezed. Between the musky, dusty air and the odor of these two men, it was difficult to inhale without feeling bile rise in my throat.

"I don' like it!" The scrawny man said. "I ain't gonna feel right sayin' 'Sam' when I'm fuckin' ya!"

"You need a cute name like Candy or Kitty!" The burly man said. "Girls with cute names always sell fast."

"Oi!" The scrawny man said. "We sellin' 'er? Bollocks, let's keep 'er! Our own personal fucktoy, yeh?"

"Only until Paradise Falls," The burly man said. "We need money more than we need pussy."

"Speak fer yerself," the scrawny man muttered. "I hope we be takin' the scenic route to Paradise Falls!" he said while groping me with one hand. "I want to spend as much time as possible with our little guest here!"

The two men led me - or rather, shoved me - through the abode of my rapist. There was nothing in sight but empty shelves and cupboards; they had looted everything here, even his body, leaving him nude and facedown on the ground. As I passed by his corpse and stared at the gruesome bullet wounds in his head, I did not feel anything. Not relief, not satisfaction, not even repulsion. It just didn't feel real.

The reason it had taken so long for anyone to discover this place was because my rapist had disguised the entrance quite cleverly. Travelers rarely inspect crashed vehicles very thoroughly, and my rapist knew this. From the surface, the entrance to the cave appeared to be a car that was driven straight into a hill of rocks - but opening the trunk revealed a tunnel that led into an underground cavern. This secret entrance was inconspicuous enough to serve my rapist very well...until today, that is.

Emerging from the trunk of the car, I was blinded by a light that I had forgotten all about. Being struck by the sun was simultaneously painful and soothing - it was scorching hot and blinding, but it meant a return to the world outside of my prison, and the return of an old friend.

When my eyes adjusted, I saw a world that I had almost forgotten. The wasteland hadn't changed at all. It was still a grey and brown landscape composed of different-sized rocks, with a few landmarks such as electrical poles that carried no charge and billboards advertising things that no longer existed. I could see from one end of the horizon to the other, but there was nothing noteworthy in sight, which was almost always the situation in the wasteland.

"Don't just stand there, yeh dumb broad," the scrawny man yapped. "Git movin'!"

He kicked me hard in the back, and I stumbled to the ground. I tried to scramble to my feet, but having both hands tied behind my back made it difficult. The two of them laughed at me as I flopped around on the ground. Finally, one of them grabbed me by my hair and pulled me up, then shoved me toward something that made me scream.

It was a bony creature with thin skin that revealed the skeletal structure and ribcage underneath its flesh, but despite its visible skeleton, large sacks of fat hung from its frame, drooping down unpleasantly. It had four legs and two heads, both with black horns. It was an abomination, a freak of nature, a monster.

"Wot's the matta, yeh nevah seen a brahmin before, girl?" The scrawny man asked as he slapped my ass.

The monster appeared to be domesticated. Bags and pouches were strapped to the beast, each carrying supplies and items that the two men had scavenged or looted from their victims. Everything that my previous owner possessed had been added to the Brahmin's load - and now I was here as well.

"Don't git yer hopes up, yer walkin'!" The scrawny man said. "You ain't good enough t' ride on Bessie, and even then, we don't want you weighin' 'er down!"

The burly man reached into his belongings and produced a compass. It reminded me of the one my father had owned. "We were heading this way," he said, pointing off into the distance. "Paradise Falls should be about two days' travel."

"That's two days to fuck ev'ry sacred hole in your sweet lil' body," the scrawny man said to me as he grinned widely, revealing a shortage of teeth.

A wave of despair washed over me, but when it receded, there was a surprising amount of optimism in its wake.

_The man who killed your father is dead._

_You're not tied to the bed anymore._

_You're out of the place where you've been held captive._

_You're seeing new people._

_You're going to be seeing new places._

_Your life is now slightly more than being raped every day._

As though my mind were a beach, the wave of despair returned to crashed upon the shore of optimism, washing away any pleasant thoughts.

_Nothing has changed. You are still a slave. You are still an object. You are still not free. You are still someone's possession. It doesn't matter if you've changed hands._

I tried to argue with myself. I tried to tell myself that my situation had improved. But it was impossible to cheer up. When I looked at this dirty, grinning man as he promised to rape me for the next two days, I saw nothing to be optimistic about, no matter how much my situation had 'improved'.

And that's when I realized that I would never be happy if I was still being raped.

And that's when it occurred to me that I had to find a way to stop these men from raping me.

But I couldn't stop them by force, and I couldn't run away without being shot at.

Which meant that I would have to find a different way to stop them.

An idea came to mind with such abruptness that it startled me. My mind had been left to atrophy and rot away for so long that I had almost forgotten my name. And yet, I still had the mental facilities to spontaneously devise a plan in almost no time at all.

When you need to think of an idea, the first thought to occur to you can sometimes be impractical or unconventional. But in this case, the first thought that occurred to me seemed perfectly logical and reasonable - at least to my rattled, rotted mind.

I had to try it.

I wasn't going to wait for the right moment. As far as I was concerned, the "right moment" was as soon as possible.

I took a step forward, and moved closer to the scrawny man, putting my chin over his shoulder and my lips next to his ear.

"He plans to kill you," I whispered.

The scrawny man backed away from me, his eyes as wide as big white saucers, a look of horror on his face. He spun around, and looked at his partner. The burly man was loading the last of their supplies onto 'Bessie', oblivious as to what I was saying.

"W-wot?" The scrawny man mumbled. "Wot'd you say?"

"He told me that I'm worth a high price," I whispered. "He told me that he's going to kill you so he doesn't have to split it."

The scrawny man turned around and looked nervously at his comrade. The burly man looked over at his friend and shrugged. "What is it this time?"

In the blink of an eye, the smaller man had drawn a gun - it was the variety that my father had used. A six-shooter.

"I KNEW IT, YOU BASTID!" He cried, pointing the weapon at his ally. "I KNEW IT!"

"What the fuck!" The larger man exclaimed. "What are you doing, you fucking lunatic?"

"All that shit yer always sayin', dog-eat-dog, every man fer 'imself, survival a' the fittest, you think you're so clever!" The scrawny man scoffed. "Yer only keepin' me around 'til I ain't useful, then yer gonna drop my ass so you have all the caps t' yerself!"

"What are you saying?!" The larger man demanded. "We're a team, you know that! We've been working together for a year now, if I was gonna drop your ass then I would have done it months ago, you dumb fuck!"

"Oh yeh?" The scrawny man began. "Yer always sayin' that things is gonna change once we get to D.C., that everything's gonna change! It's yer subtle way of foreshadowin' yer plans! Things're gonna change alright, I'm gonna fockin' die once we - "

A sound like thunder - it was a gunshot. The scrawny man's head whipped back as blood shot out of a gaping wound in it. While he was ranting, the larger man found a gun loaded on Bessie's back and subtly aimed it without appearing as though he was getting ready to shoot his companion in the head.

The moment he was shot, the scrawny man's fingers squeezed the trigger of his gun. The gun fired, a distinctly different sound from the larger man's gun, but just as loud. The bullet struck Bessie, and the brahmin bellowed loudly and thrashed violently. The mutant bovine knocked over the larger man, shuddered, and then fell over, pinning the man underneath it. Bessie moved no more.

I knew that this was my only chance.

With my ankles tied, if I fell over, I would be hopeless. I had to retrieve the scrawny man's gun from his hand as quickly as possible, without falling over, and with my hands tied behind my back. I didn't believe it would be possible. I hadn't walked in so long, I had almost forgotten how. And how could I fire the gun if it was behind my back?

There was no time to question it.

I shuffled across the ground, stood over the dead man's hand, turned around, and then bent my legs to go lower -

Oh no!

I lost balance and went crashing to the ground. I felt my hands graze something metallic. The gun was right there! I found the grip. Good, now just...no! I lost it. I couldn't possibly grab something without looking...

I straightened my body out, then sat up, then curled my legs, then I moved my hands underneath my butt and past my feet. There, now my hands were in front of me! I spun around and saw the gun. I grabbed it quickly.

The larger man was moaning. I could see him pushing Bessie off of him, but he was on the other side of the Brahmin's corpse. Still in a sitting position, I started inching my way toward him by moving my feet forward, then gripping the ground with my toes and pulling the rest of my body forward. I continued scooting toward the Brahmin until I was at its heads. The man was only a few feet away from me now.

I shot my feet out and then pulled myself forward so that I could pop out quickly and shoot the man before he could react. In an instant, I was on the other side of the Brahmin and my gun was raised. The man was right where I expected him to be - buried underneath the corpse of a beast twice his size, pushing in vain against its body, unable to make it budge an inch.

My father had taught me how to fire a gun after I begged him to. I knew about the safety and the hammer and the difference between a clip and a magazine - but none of that came to mind right now. Right now, I was only thinking of aiming and pulling the trigger.

I aimed - and yet, I could not pull the trigger.

I was looking down the sight of the weapon straight at the center of the burly man's wrinkled head, but I could not make myself shoot at him. The man who raped me only minutes ago, the man who told me himself that we were living in a dog-eat-dog world, the man who planned to sell me as a sex slave.

I couldn't shoot him.

I had never taken a human life before. My father taught me to behave with respect and courtesy - and killing someone seemed like the least courteous thing you could do to them. All I could think of while staring down the sight of that gun was how it wouldn't be nice to shoot him, and how I shouldn't shoot him because it would be mean.

Or maybe it was subconscious. Maybe some part of me knew that, if I pulled that trigger, I was taking my first step toward becoming one of them - a person who kills others for their own benefit. This was not self defense. This was the cold-blooded murder of a man who was pinned down, unable to move.

And, yet, he was moving - or, at least, his arm was. He was reaching for something. My eyes went to his hands to see what he was grabbing, and once he knew that I was distracted, he lashed out his arm and grabbed a pistol stashed in one of the Brahmin's bags.

When I saw him reaching for a gun, I cringed with fear, shut my eyes tight, and pulled the trigger impulsively. I wasn't prepared for the recoil of the gun, and as soon as I fired, the gun went flying out of my hands. I opened my eyes and looked frantically for the gun, but it was nowhere to be seen. I looked back toward the man, and saw a completely blank look on his face. His eyes were empty, unblinking, unfocused. There was a bullet wound in the middle of his forehead, pouring blood down his face, slowly forming a puddle around his head. It took a few moments for me to process what I had just done.

I had killed a human being.

For several minutes, I sat there, stunned. I could not believe any of the events that had transpired within the past half-hour, or that any of it was real. Most of the shock was due to the fact that my routine had been shattered. I was not lying on my back staring at a cracked, dusty ceiling, listening to the faint hum of a light bulb, chained to a bed. That fact alone was almost impossible for me to even comprehend. To know one existence for so long, and to have it shattered so quickly, so suddenly - it was surreal. I felt numb, not because rape had dulled my senses, but because none of this felt real.

I began to cry. It was not because of sadness, but simple emotional instability. I didn't know what to think or feel right now. I almost wanted to be back in my prison, being raped, just because it was so familiar that I felt like I "belonged" back there.

Or maybe I was just experiencing tears of joy for the first time in my life.

I fell onto my back and continued to cry. I laid there on the rough, dirty, rocky, dusty ground, bawling like a baby. For some reason, the dust and pebbles on the ground comforted me, because they gave me more of a sensation than the sheets of my bed, and feeling such a sensation made me feel alive, even if it wasn't comfortable.

I don't know how long I spent there sobbing, but once my senses returned to me, I decided to do something about the shackles on my wrists and ankles - it was so liberating to decide to do something, so freeing to have a choice for once! I knew that my owner had used a small key to lock the chains in place, and that these two men had used the same key. One of them would still have it. I thought about who had chained me up - it was the larger man. I scooted toward him. I would have to search his pockets. I was afraid of him, even now, even when I had just placed a bullet in his head. If he hadn't moved during all the time I had been crying, then he wouldn't attack me now, either. But I was still nervous and afraid. I quickly started rummaging through his pockets, and in the third pocket, I found it - a small key, one I had seen countless times. In all of my escape fantasies, I snatched the key away from my owner, freed myself and then beat him mercilessly - now that very key was in my grasp. With trembling, shaking hands, I inserted the key into the padlocks at my hands and feet, and freed myself.

The first thing I did was to stand up, and then stretch. I was fascinated by how limber and flexible my body was! After so long, I had completely forgotten that I could move my arms and legs so far. It was like I had discovered something entirely new about myself. I took a few cautious, tentative steps, afraid of falling down - but apparently, I had not forgotten how to walk, as I had feared. My muscles were weak, but my muscle memory remained. With the help of instinct and reflex, I could walk forward just fine, but turning and walking sideways and backwards was difficult.

Even though I had been given clothing, I still felt naked. It was because I was outside in the middle of the wasteland, completely vulnerable to all of its many threats. I had freed myself, stretched, limbered up - but what was I going to do now? I knew so little that I could hardly formulate a plan. What was there for me to do? I had no destination and no mission. At least when I was tied to that bed, I knew what my purpose was.

No...I shook my head violently to banish such thoughts. It was not a good life because it was simple.

I knew one thing - I wanted to be away from this place and these people, but I could not just walk away. I would starve without food and water, and die without a weapon to defend myself with. The clothing I was wearing was also completely inadequate. I would need supplies.

There was nothing left for me in the cavern that I had been kept in for so long. All that remained down there was the corpse of a man I never wished to see again. If I needed supplies, they were right here, on the bodies of these two men and their pack animal. I began scavenging.

They carried with them an assortment of clothing that would not have fit either of them, and junk that served no apparent use. I realized that they carried this 'junk' around with them because, somewhere in the world, there was a merchant who would pay them money for it. In my entire life, I had only known my father, my rapist, and these two men, but I knew that there were a great deal more people in the world, and if what my father and these men said were true, then there were people in the world who would trade me something of theirs for something of mine.

And that's when I realized that I now had far more possessions than I could carry.

They were wise to use a pack animal, for it would be impossible to traverse the wasteland carrying this many supplies in one's arms. I decided that I would gather their weapons, ammunition, armor, food, water, and medical supplies, and then see how much room was left. The answer was none; I could barely carry the essentials, even when wearing a backpack. Their armor was what weighed me down the most; they had improvised by affixing metal plates to their chests, shoulders, and limbs, the only clothing I bothered to scavenge from them. The metal plates were heavy, but I didn't wish to be shot. I fastened the makeshift armor to my body, but I couldn't even walk with so much heavy weight attached to me. Heavy armor was out of the question; I would have to bundle up in thick cloth and hope for the best.

After I had dressed myself in enough clothing to feel protected, I realized that I was ready to embark. I had all the supplies I needed to survive...but I was hungry, out of energy, and the sun was setting. I looked back toward the entrance of my rapist's cavern. I didn't want to return, but I would sooner endure that hellhole for one more night than try to survive in the wasteland in darkness.

I returned to the cavern, bringing my supplies with me, leaving the junk and heavy armor outside. The first thing I saw once returning to the cavern was a corpse. The man who raped me, who turned me into an object, who made me nothing more than a body - was now, ironically, just a body himself. And he was even lower than I had been, for he was a dead body, whereas at least I still retained my senses, even when I belonged to him.

I felt disappointment that he was dead. I would have wished to kill him, and now that honor was forever gone to me. I could still live out my fantasies by mutilating his corpse, but even though I had enough hate to fuel such a gruesome act, I valued my humanity more than I desired revenge upon a cadaver. His body was the last place I wanted my hands, but I grabbed him and dragged him outside to the other corpses and left him there to rot with the other scum. I wouldn't spend the night in that cavern with his rotting corpse nearby me.

There was a bed here, one larger and more comfortable than mine had ever been. I would sleep there tonight, but first, I would eat something.

I removed and opened my new backpack and took inventory of everything I had thoughtlessly tossed inside. There were a lot of bloody, fleshy blobs that were evidently the meat of some creature. I found my owner's stove and turned it on, something I still remembered how to do from when I was living with my father. I boiled the meat to kill germs just like my father had taught me, and ate it with the cleanest utensils I could find. It was not appetizing, but it was better than the gruel I had been served, and I was always kept just above starvation, so I scarfed down bite after bite. Eventually, I could not eat anymore - there was a feeling of fullness within me, as though I would burst if I ate any more. It was the first time I had felt that way since living with my father.

My father had warned me that every drop of water we drank was impure and filthy, but that the fluid was necessary for life and that dirty water was still better than none. I was happy to drink at my own leisure for once, and so I had no complaints about the taste.

I felt as though I had eaten a feast. Feeling more full and content than I had ever been, I retreated to the rapist's bed to sleep. I was uncomfortably conscious of the fact that I was lying in the same bed as the man who raped me every day, but I would sooner sleep there than take the floor or the bed I had been chained to for so long.

It was the first time since my capture that I fell asleep because I wanted to, rather than because it was the only activity available - not that sleeping is much of an activity. I dreamed, of course. I dreamed that the dead bodies outside of the cavern came back to life and violated me. Even Bessie, although I believed Bessie was a female. Dreams don't make much sense. As far back as I could remember, I had always dreamed of the things I feared the most. When my father told me about Mutants and Ghouls and Raiders, I dreamed about Mutants and Ghouls and Raiders. Most of all, I dreamed about my father dying. After he was dead, there was nothing else to fear except the rapist, and so he became the only thing I dreamed about. Now that my mind had fresh nightmare material, I was able to see brand-new horrific images on the back of my eyelids as I slept. Some part of me was thankful for the variety. But the rest of me never wanted to sleep again.

When I woke up, I was confused. I didn't realize where I was. The events of the previous day returned to me, and once again I had to spend several minutes in disbelief, recounting every event until I was convinced that I wasn't still dreaming. Uneasily, I stumbled around the cavern, until something caught my eye -

Movement.

I panicked, and scrambled for the satchel of firearms. I found the handle of a pistol and pointed it toward the source of the movement. Only once I was facing that direction did I see who was in here with me - a young woman with long blonde hair, pale skin, and smooth features, aiming a pistol right back at me.

"Don't shoot, please!" I begged her, and I saw her lips move along with mine. When I realized the truth, I felt stupid; it was a mirror. The presence of a mirror hanging on one of the cavern walls struck me as ironic, considering that the rapist never paid any care to his appearance and did not seem particularly vain. But what was more important to me was that I did not recognize my own reflection.

The young woman I saw in the mirror was not familiar to me. There was no possible way I could be looking at my own reflection; she was in her late teens and I was just a 10 year old girl. I slowly realized that my mental image of myself remained at the same age I was the last time I looked in a mirror - at 10 years old. My perception of my own appearance had remained the same, even though in reality I was growing up.

Seeing my face in the mirror forced the facts right in front of me. I was no longer a child. I was a young adult. My childhood was gone. It was stolen by the rapist, along with all other childhood innocence. I would never be a child again, and never be allowed the kindness that is reserved only for children. Being fed and sheltered by others was the only world I had ever known, but with all of my caretakers dead, I was now forced to enter the world of adults. I would have to care for myself, and it was very unlikely that I would find anyone who would help me.

I felt tears coming to my eyes as I looked at the face in the mirror. "That's me," I said to myself over and over. "That's me now." It was as though I was looking at someone completely different, someone whose body I would be forced to live in from now on. I was not that person - I was a little girl who missed her father and hated the man that abused her. But now I was no longer allowed to be that girl. Now I would have to be this new person, a teenager, almost an adult.

It was now obvious to me that I had spent years in this cavern. How many years had passed? How many consecutive days had I been raped? A thousand? Two thousand? I didn't want to think of it. It made me sick to think of how many years I had lost, to think that I had lost so much of my youth, to think that I had spent so much of my life down here in this cave with that man. All I could think of was leaving as soon as I could. I grabbed my supplies, dressed myself in the clothing I had scavenged, and left that cavern forever. I didn't look back. I had no reason to.

The sun, sky, and wind remained a phenomenon to me. They were familiar old friends from a long time ago, and yet they felt like entirely new experiences. To look up, and see no ceiling...it was disorienting, almost dizzying. Walking was a challenge; I was hardly strong enough to keep myself upright, much less carry supplies with me. My rapist had not been generous with his gruel; I was emaciated, my skin clinging so tight to my bones that I had the appearance of a skeleton gifted with movement.

If I wanted to survive in an environment as dangerous as the wasteland, I would need to be physically fit. I knew that change did not come quickly to the human body, and that I would have to invest months into self-improvement. I would need time to make myself athletic, and a safe place to exercise. However, a "safe place" is nonexistent in the wasteland - unless...

I had lived with my father in a shack underneath what he called a "freeway overpass". It was so far out of the way that, as long as we kept to ourselves, we were not in danger. My father went hunting three times a day to bring back breakfast, lunch, and dinner. He went scavenging when ammunition was low. I knew that he had encountered and killed other people in the wasteland, but he was so kind to me that I knew he would never kill anyone who was innocent. He told me that some people in this world believed in upholding virtues, practicing ethical behavior, and abstaining from violence, but that he had not encountered one of these people in years. He told me that these people usually stick together in fortified settlements, where they are safe from attacks. I asked him why we didn't live in a fortified settlement, and he told me that all of the settlements he knew about were very far away. He said it was safer to remain in one secure location than to risk our lives traveling across the wasteland. He said that we were certain to be killed before we ever reached a peaceful place.

Even as an innocent child, I thought that we were far too vulnerable and exposed in our little shack, and that we should leave for a settlement as soon as we could. But my father stubbornly refused, telling me that he had experience and knew best. I believed him, but in the end, he wound up dead and I wound up a captive for several years.

Now, as I stood in the middle of the wasteland, a frail, bony woman with the mind of a little girl, I was faced with the task of finding safety. I knew that I was standing right outside of a very secure location; it had taken years for anyone to find my rapist's cavern, and perhaps I was better off staying there than leaving. But all the horrors of the wasteland could not have forced me to go back inside of that place; no matter how safe it was, it made me sick to my stomach to remain there.

I made the decision to search for a settlement. I had no clue how to find one, but I would walk until I arrived at one, and search for clues as I traveled. If I reached the ocean or terrain I could not pass, I would walk alongside whatever I could not traverse until I went around it.

My father often spoke of a 'coast' to the east that we had originated from. If he had known settlements, and if we had come from the east, then surely, by traveling east I would find something. It was a weak lead, but it was the only one I had. I used the compass that the burly man held in order to determine which direction that was, and then I began to walk.

And so, my new life began.

* * *

**Author's Note:** I have tried my best to accurately portray the psychological trauma of a rape victim, but if you have any advice on making Samantha's characterization more realistic, please send me a message.


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